My backup game is pretty bad, I only have my primary copy of my data and a cloud storage copy. I was trying to think of a cheap way to have another backup, and then realized I have an Orange Pi Zero 2 and a 1TB USD SSD lying around. So I was thinking of:

  • installing Debian on the OPZ2, and setting up key-authenticated SFTP (no password auth)
  • connect the OPZ2 on my home network and expose a non-standard (e.g. not 22) port for SFTP
  • have a subdomain point to my home network ip, and use DDNS to keep it in sync
  • using Restic to remotely push password-encrypted backups to the OPZ2 via SFTP using the subdomain
  • set a cron job to check diskhealth and send myself email on bad
  • enable auto updates on debian and email on fail

Is this setup a bad idea? Is this a security nightmare? Any better suggestions?

  • rhabarba@feddit.deEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    A few thoughts on this:

    • Debian is, in my opinion, oversized for an OPZ2. If it absolutely has to be Linux (does it?), Alpine or Void might be worth a closer look.
    • Why SFTP? Wouldn’t SCP be enough?
    • Automatic updates are risky for a device that is supposed to run always. Instead, I would recommend sending update notifications and then manually applying an update from time to time. If the device no longer boots up, you often don’t even notice it.